Les Green Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Down Memory Lane – the Zionites

Trinity A.M.E. Zion church, 1956

A good friend of mine from my hometown of Binghamton, NY, Cee, wrote that on Friday, May 22, they “attended a wonderful presentation by Brenda Cave James on local Black churches, Susquehanna Street prior to urban renewal, and more.

“One of her display boards caught my eye…” A display showed two different musical revues by the folks at Trinity A.M.E. Zion church in 1948 and 1956. The latter event, with the performers dubbed the Zionites, is of particular interest to me.

Before that, a little history from WBMG-TV (2024). According to Broome County Historian Roger Luther, “AME Bethel closed its doors around 1930, and the congregation merged with AME Zion Church, formerly located where Columbus Park now stands.” I was baptized in the AME Zion church at that previous location. “In 1957, AME Zion was moved to its present-day location at the corner of Oak and Lydia streets.”

Musical triptych

There were three segments of the 1956 program, Down Memory Lane, which was directed by two women I knew from church: Beccye Fawcett, who was my boss when I worked at the Binghamton Public Library for several months in the late 1960s, and Dorothy Owens, a stalwart in the choir.

Part 1 represented the Gay Nineties. For one song, the Floradora Girls danced. Among the women: Geneivive Taylor, another librarian, and Gertrude Green, my mother! A couple of songs were performed by Luvenia McElroy, my sister Leslie’s godmother. Mack Green, presumably my grandfather McKinley Green, performed a Buck and Wing Dance.

The Roaring Twenties included Leslie Green (misspelled as Lesli) performing “Sonny Boy” with his son. Wait, what? I would have been three at the time. For the Rocking Fifties segment, my dad performed folk songs.

The December 3, 1948, performance at Binghamton Central High School also featured my mother, who was then Gertrude Williams, and my father. It was directed by Beccye Fawcett. The repertoire was limited to the Gay Nineties.

I believe Brenda Cave James is the daughter of the late Allen Cave, who was the vice-principal of Binghamton Central High School.

Encyclopedia Americana

married 76 years ago today

In musing about how I (eventually) became a librarian, I thought about how my parents bought us the Encyclopedia Americana when I was nine. Or twelve or at some time in between; I don’t quite remember.

I am pretty sure the purchase resulted from a door-to-door salesman visiting our home. While our parents didn’t get into the details of the household economy, my sisters and I knew that we weren’t particularly flush with cash.

My mother was a bookkeeper for McLean’s department store in downtown Binghamton, NY. She was well-suited to the job, as I also saw in her home budgeting.

My father was probably working nights at IBM in nearby Endicott, driving a forklift, a job he hated because it was not intellectually stimulating. He had done and was still doing other jobs, notably floral arranging, sign painting, and a bit of singing, but they were not lucrative enough to support a family of five.

So the purchase of the Americana was a big deal. I’ve read the set costs somewhere between $200 and $300, depending on the binding. That would be around $2000 in 2026 dollars.

It was pitched as an educational investment for the family. But everyone knew who was most likely to read it was the kid who memorized stats from the backs of his baseball cards.

Aardwolf?

Sure enough, I read the entire set, starting with Aachen, followed by aardvark, aardwolf… I didn’t know what that was, but it isn’t an aardvark or a wolf. It took me more than a year to finish. But I sped up the process when they purchased an annual update to the standard set, to reflect the changes, usually political.

One of my sisters commented that my father was certainly the one who used the Encyclopedia Americana more than anyone else, besides me. I was told that he wasn’t much of a student as a kid, but his innate curiosity as an adult required him to always be learning.

Along with the World Almanac, which I received for Christmas every year, my parents boosted my geek cred.

Les Green and Gertude (Trudy) Williams got married on March 12, 1950, and stayed together until my father died on August 10, 2000; my mom died on February 2, 2011.

McKinley Green, of his generation

The Les/Mac relationship was…complicated

A high school classmate forwarded me a Facebook post of a guy named Roy Sova:

“How the world has changed. Talking with a co-worker at WBNG-TV in Binghamton [NY], we got on the subject of McKinley Green, or ‘Mac,’ as everybody called him.” Channel 12 was WNBF-TV, the CBS affiliate, when I was growing up.

As my classmate well knew, Mac was my paternal grandfather. Well, technically, my step-grandfather. This is a fact my sisters and I learned pretty early on. I don’t recall HOW we were told, let alone WHY, but it was out there.

My father’s biological dad was the infamous Raymond Cone, who died in 1947, before I was born, and who I couldn’t name until 2019. Clarence Williams, my mom’s dad, was not in my life and seldom in my mother’s, though I attended his 1958 funeral; I was five.

So, Mac was my only REAL grandfather, taking me to Triplets minor league baseball games, especially when my father was working nights at IBM for about six years in the 1960s. Here’s something I wrote back in 2005.

An interesting perspective

Roy Sova posted: “Mac was in his mid-70s when I knew him, which would have been around the early 1970s. [That tracks; he was likely born in 1896.] He was the maintenance guy at the TV station, and although his eyesight was failing, he was on our bowling team. [And according to Roy, Mac was a better bowler than he was.] The TV station told him he had a job there as long as he wanted it.” [I had heard that elsewhere.]

“His father was born in Maryland in 1848 and had been a slave”. [This I cannot verify; I thought his father was born in 1862, though in Maryland, but maybe I discovered the wrong John Green.]

“Mac was very old school. He always called me Mr Sova. One day, I asked him to please call me Roy. He was about 50 years older than me. As he continued to call me Mr Sova, I again asked him to call me Roy, or I was going to start calling him Mr Green. I’ll never forget his response.

“This is paraphrased, but pretty much what he said. ‘If you call me Mr Green, it will hurt me. I was brought up to call my betters Mister.’ I never felt I was Mac’s better, and after that, barely his equal. But from that day forward, I was Mr. Sova, and he was Mac.” Roy notes that he was probably a news reporter and a weekend news anchor.

When I first read it, it weirded me out a bit. But it did track consistently with who Mac was.

An unexplored line

I never spent much time talking to Mac, whom we called Pop, about his birth family. I’d met his brothers a handful of times. My father’s relationship with Mac was… complicated. Still, Mac adopted (the term they used) him in September 1944, about 3 weeks before my dad turned 18. (Dad’s mom/Pop’s wife since 1931 was still his mom.)

Roy Sova: “Yes, your dad’s relationship with Mac was a little strained. Mac was content to live as in the past, your dad wanted change. I interviewed [Les] several times about his work with the Urban League. [Actually, the Interracial Center that eventually became the Urban League at 45 Carroll Street.] Mac was a great guy. Liked and respected by everyone at the radio and TV stations. “

I may talk with Roy Sova again — someone who knew Les and Mac separately, which is fascinating to me.

My veteran ancestors

Three great-great-grandfathers fought in the Civil War

I decided to catalogue my veteran ancestors. I’ve mentioned some, but not all, and I’ve likely missed several.

A few years ago, I noted a piece from the Equal Justice Initiative: “Military service sparked dreams of racial equality for generations of African Americans.” It was seen as ‘proof’ of their worthiness to be included in the American dream… No one was more at risk of experiencing violence and targeted racial terror than black veterans who had proven their valor and courage as soldiers during the Civil War, World War I, and World War II. Because of their military service, black veterans were seen as a particular threat to Jim Crow and racial subordination.”

Civil War

James Archer, my mother (Trudy Williams Green)’s mother (Gertrude Yates Williams)’s mother (Lillian Bell Archer)’s father. Served in the 26th New York Colored Regiment. I’ve known about him for decades, as he was buried in Binghamton, NY, near my grandmother’s house.

William Bell, my mother’s mother’s mother’s mother (Harriet Bell Archer)’s brother. Served in the 26th New York Colored Regiment with James Archer.

Henry Bell, my mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s brother. Served in the Massachusetts 54th Colored Regiment. In the 1865 New York State Census, although they were all at war, William, Henry, and James were listed as living together in Binghamton, NY, with William and Henry’s recently widowed father, Edward Bell, their sisters Harriet Archer (married to James) and Francelia Bell, two of James and Harriet’s sons, Morgan and James, and William’s son, Martin.

Daniel Williams, my mother’s father (Clarence Williams)’s father (Charles Williams)’s father. Served in Company F of the 43rd United States Colored Infantry Regiment. I discovered him trying (and failing) to find my Irish ancestors.

Samuel Patterson, my father (Leslie Green)’s mother (Agatha Walker Green)’s mother (Mary Eugenia Patterson Walker)’s father. Served in the 5th Regiment, Massachusetts Calvary (Colored). I have three great-great-grandfathers who fought in that great Civil War, “testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”

World War I

McKinley Green, my father’s stepfather. Served from October 1917 to February 1919 in the 368th Infantry. Stationed in Argonne and elsewhere. Discharged from Fort Mead, MD. McKinley and his wife/my grandmother Agatha, lived upstairs from my birth family at 5 Gaines Street in Binghamton.

World War II

Edward Yates, my mother’s mother’s brother. Served as “Branch Immaterial – Warrant Officers, USA.” Since my mother’s grandmother, Lillian Archer, reportedly “drove off” my mother’s father, Clarence Williams, Ed was my mother’s primary male role model. I remember seeing his photo at my grandmother’s house; the family was so proud.

Leslie Green, my father. “At the end of February 2010, I gave a presentation for the Underground Railroad conference about Black Soldiers in Post-WWII Germany,” which I wrote about here.

I’m pleased all the men here escaped the wars alive.

*Preserving a Legacy: Caring for Your Ancestor’s Military Uniform

This picture is 75 years old

March 12, 1950

This picture is 75 years old.

I looked through all of the pictures of my parents, Les and Gertrude (Trudy), on their wedding anniversary, March 12th, that I have posted on this blog. Interestingly, from 2005, when I started the blog, to 2011, the year my mom died, I didn’t post any. Since my dad had died in 2000, I didn’t even think to mention their anniversary.

After she died, though, I felt liberated to write whatever about them. And it also recontextualized how I saw them as a couple. My sisters and I often have ZOOM conversations on Sunday afternoons, which started during COVID, and early on, a lot of conversations were about their dynamics individually and as a couple.

Still, I often used a group photo, as I did here on March 12. It’s probably because I think it’s a hoot; it looks like a bunch of wary relatives.

Changing it up

But to my knowledge, I’ve never used this photo. My sister Marcia, the keeper of the pictures, posted it on Facebook eight years ago, and then sister Leslie reposted it recently. I have no idea who took it. If I were a betting man, it would probably be one of my maternal grandmother Williams’ brothers, Ed or Ernie Yates.

This picture is in the First Ward of Binghamton, NY, near 13 Maple Street, on March 12, 1950. I was always grateful that they decided to get married in a year ending with a zero; it made the math much more straightforward. So I can remember the family drama on March 12, 1995, for instance, a story for another time.

My father looks happy in this photo. But my mother is more contemplative, wondering what she’s gotten herself into, which is a reasonable concern. Or maybe she’s just looking at someone, maybe a younger cousin. I use the terms “mother” and “father” loosely because I wasn’t born until five days shy of three years later.

My parents were married 50 years and two days shy of five months.